The recently released files, discovered at the National Archives in Kew in London by researchers from the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre, expose the official thinking behind the disparity and highlight the military's relaxed attitude towards loyalist paramilitary factions.

Released by the National Archives in Kew, west London, the slim Security Service file casts new light on the uneasy relationship between one of the 20th century's most influential writers and the institutions of the British state, which he frequently criticised as unwieldy and unjust.

The digitised records form part of the underused and poorly catalogued 'poor law union correspondence', from the huge Ministry of Health archive held at The National Archives in Kew, covering the period 1834 to 1871.